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The new National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction resource compiles thousands of state and federal statutes into a searchable database, making it easier to identify these obscure regulations that can be triggered by a particular conviction.

Following four principles of corrections system improvement—organizational development, use of risk and needs assessments, quality improvement, and data collection and management—states like Vermont participate in SRR in an effort to reduce the likelihood of recidivism for every person under correctional supervision.

CSG Justice Center staff spoke with four Second Chance Act Innovations in Reentry Initiative grantees about their experiences fostering effective partnerships between criminal justice practitioners and the researchers evaluating their programs. These programs span the country and the justice system, serving clients within courts, prisons, jails, and in the community.

“I have the motivation to be in control of my own choices—for how I see my future and how I see my children’s future,” Darius Dennis said. “That’s what the program taught me. So it was absolutely the right thing for me at the right time.”

The primary function of correctional supervision was once seen as control and custody; however, corrections agencies have increasingly come to recognize that focusing on rehabilitation and planning for reentry are fundamental to their missions to increase public safety.

Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas became the latest governor to participate in Face to Face (#MeetFacetoFace), an initiative that encourages policymakers to connect with people closest to the correctional system. He joins 13 other governors—7 Republicans and 6 Democrats—that have participated in the initiative.

Bettie Kirkland, the executive director of Project Return in Nashville, joins For the Record to discuss her organization’s work connecting hundreds of people who have criminal records to employment each year and reflects on what it means to ensure they have a chance at success.

After 24 visits to Connecticut prisons, Gov. Dannel Malloy decided it was time others got to see what he’d seen. “After the experiences I’ve had,” Malloy said, “we just got to thinking that it would be good to have people experience it for a day.”

Byron Davis used the end of his sentence in Limestone Correctional Facility near Huntsville, Alabama, to get ready for his next step: searching for work back home in his community, just outside of Birmingham. He intended to put his conviction for dealing drugs behind him. “I don’t want to go back to that,” Davis said. “But I need to work, to make a living.”

Following four principles of corrections system improvement—organizational development, use of risk and needs assessments, quality improvement, and data collection and management—states like Iowa participate in SRR in an effort to reduce the likelihood of recidivism for every person under correctional supervision.

As the corrections and community supervision paradigms shift toward implementing evidence-based practices and programs (EBPs), there is an emerging need for leaders in the field to ensure accurate application of EBPs throughout the workforce and improve how staff monitor program outcomes.

What constitutes success is ensuring that, whenever possible, youth receive supervision and services that support them to avoid further contact with the justice system and transition safely to adulthood.

Esta Bigler, the director of the Cornell University Industrial and Labor Relations School’s Labor and Employment Law program, joins For the Record to discuss her work regarding record clearance as a lawyer, which has ranged from creating educational programming to working on a groundbreaking U.S. Supreme Court case.

A disproportionate number of people in the nation’s criminal justice system face mental health issues: a Bureau of Justice Statistics report found, for example, that people in U.S. prisons and jails are three to five times more likely to experience serious psychological distress than the general adult population. While there is an overwhelming need to provide effective treatment, challenges exist in quantifying the extent of that need and taking a strategic approach across systems—from law enforcement to community-based reentry services.

By focusing the job of corrections officers on reducing recidivism, the Iowa DOC aimed to use resources in the best way possible, ensure that correctional practices were based on evidence, and track outcome data.

For the Record is produced by the Clean Slate Clearinghouse and features conversations between Rashawn Davis—a policy analyst at The CSG Justice Center—and people who are involved in the criminal record clearance field, including elected officials, lawyers, social workers, and people who have or have had a juvenile or criminal record (or individuals who are all four, or more).

The inaugural episode of For the Record features an interview with criminal justice reform advocate Khalil Cumberbatch, an associate vice president with the Fortune Society and someone who has an intimate knowledge of the series’ subject: he spent almost seven years in prison, and four years after that with a criminal record until he received a pardon in 2014.

When Dave’s Killer Bread managers find out an applicant has a record, they see it not as a deterrent, but as “an opportunity to have a candid conversation about that person’s past and what they’re looking for in the future.”

The Middlesex, Massachusetts, Sheriff’s Office opened a new jail unit specifically for young adults this month. Established in partnership with the local nonprofit UTEC and the Vera Institute of Justice, the specialized unit—called People Achieving Change Together (PACT)—seeks to reduce recidivism by offering tailored programming to young people between the ages of 18 and 24 at the Middlesex Jail and House of Correction.

This guide prepared by the National Reentry Resource Center is intended to support recipients of Second Chance Act Reentry Program for Adults with Co-Occurring Substance Use and Mental Disorders grants.

This guide prepared by the National Reentry Resource Center is intended to support recipients of Second Chance Act Innovations in Supervision Initiative: Reducing Prison Populations, Saving Money, and Creating Safer Communities grants.

This guide prepared by the National Reentry Resource Center is intended to support recipients of Second Chance Act Innovations in Reentry Initiative: Focus on Evidence-Based Strategies for Successful Reentry from Incarceration to Community grants.

“The connections through Pathfinders [are] really what made the difference for me,” Steimbridge said. On top of the short-term housing assistance she received, she also credits Pathfinders’ individualized mentoring support with helping her stay on track in recovery.

A 55-year-old U.S. Army veteran, Ronald Forbes is on the brink of expanding his Oakland, California-based catering company in partnership with his sister, Catherine. Soon, he’ll move the business to a commercial space, but for now he’s practicing his recipes for barbecue chicken, ribs, and his mom’s potato salad at home.

Staff and a program participant of the Middle Tennessee Rural Reentry (MTRR) Program in Franklin County, TN, a 2015 Second Chance Act Technology-Based Career Training grantee, recently offered insights to fellow grantees as part of the National Reentry Resource Center (NRRC) training event Engaging Local Employers in Promising Practices for Hiring People Who Have Criminal Records.

During their visit, Gov. Reynolds and Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg met with inmates participating in Iowa’s largest apprenticeship program, in addition to leading a roundtable discussion with many of the program’s stakeholders and local business leaders where they discussed the importance of providing reentry services and employment opportunities for those being released from prisons and jails.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections was one of five organizations in the country to receive the 2017 Outstanding Criminal Justice Program Award from the National Criminal Justice Association for its High-Risk Revocation Reduction program.

When Sharon Hadley arrived at Santa Maria Hostel in July 2012, she had just completed the latest in her decade-long string of sentences for drug-related offenses. “Now that I look back over my life, I can see how the wheels started coming off even before I really knew it,” Hadley said. “I recidivated 13 times. Each incarceration was longer and longer, and I was more and more hopeless.”

With Second Chance Act grant funding, Santa Maria Hostel began employing recovery coaches in 2013 to provide additional, one-on-one support to women in its Paths to Recovery program to help them meet their reentry goals. Recovery coaches also help connect participants to housing, education, and employment services.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, on Aug. 16, discussed mental health treatment and “second chances” during a tour of a women’s correctional facility in Denver, where he had the opportunity to #MeetFacetoFace with corrections officers and the people incarcerated there. “Prisoners are often forgotten … out of sight out of mind,” Gov. Hickenlooper said. “I think there are better ways of dealing with their lives than just locking them up in a box.”

Launched on Monday, Aug. 14, Face to Face—an initiative sponsored by the National Reentry Resource Center and The Council of State Governments Justice Center in partnership with the Association of State Correctional Administrators, JustLeadershipUSA, and the National Center for Victims of Crime—challenges all elected officials to participate in a series of public activities through which they can interact with people who are in prison or jail, corrections officers, victims of crime, and others who have firsthand experience with the correctional system.

The initiative—sponsored by the National Reentry Resource Center and The CSG Justice Center in partnership with the Association of State Correctional Administrators, JustLeadershipUSA, and the National Center for Victims of Crime—will launch with a wave of public activities featuring both Republican and Democratic governors and other elected officials meeting with people impacted by the correctional system in their respective states.

As you may know, Michael D. Thompson, the director of The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, informed the leadership of the CSG Justice Center’s board and David Adkins, CEO of the Council of State Governments, that he would be leaving the organization at the end of June to join The Pew Charitable Trusts.

As the leaders of Old Pueblo Community Services (OPCS) can attest, the landscape of housing and reentry services is never static. For this nonprofit organization that serves people at risk of homelessness in Pima County, Arizona, the communities they work in, their clients, funding streams, and research into best practices all evolve over time—and OPCS’ leaders recognize the importance of evolving along with that landscape.

The National Reentry Resource Center and The Council of State Governments Justice Center recently released two briefs at an event on Capitol Hill highlighting efforts to reduce recidivism in communities throughout the country.

The CSG Justice Center staff spoke with board member Michael Pinard—the Francis and Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law and co-director of the Clinical Law Program at the University of Maryland (UM) Francis King Carey School of Law—about his thoughts on record clearance, drawing on his experiences as a public defender, professor, and co-founder of UM’s Reentry Clinic.

The Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives, in partnership with the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, has been awarded a $500,000 contract to help support businesses in hiring people with criminal records. The proposal was selected by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Reentry Resource Center in a competitive process from a pool of more than 60 applicants.

New York Nonprofit (NYN) Media recently recognized Stephanie Akhter, the CSG Justice Center’s Reentry and Employment Program director, as one of 30 Front-Line Heroes chosen from a pool of 250 nominees.

“I’ve been in and out of jail for the last 20 years, and this [group] taught me it was time to grow up and stop doing the things I was doing,” Rich said. “Having people who care about how you’re doing and who can lift your spirits is important.”

New Beginnings, a 2011 and 2014 Second Chance Act-funded program of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, received the 2017 Innovation in Corrections Award at the American Correctional Association Conference in San Antonio, Texas last month.

This guide prepared by the National Reentry Resource Center is intended to support recipients of Second Chance Act (SCA) Reentry Program for Adults with Co-Occurring Substance Abuse and Mental Disorders grants funded by the U.S. Department of Justice.

This guide prepared by the National Reentry Resource Center (NRRC) is intended to support recipients of Second Chance Act (SCA) Smart Reentry: Focus on Evidence-Based Strategies for Successful Reentry from Incarceration to Community grants funded by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). It is not intended to serve as a step-by-step blueprint for developing a reentry program, but rather to foster discussion on best practices, identify considerations for collaborative efforts, and help programs work through key decisions and implementation challenges. Although the guide was developed as a tool for SCA grantees, its exercises and supporting resources may be helpful for other reentry programs.

The conference, which was hosted by United States attorneys of the six New England Districts—Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine—uplifted the region’s approach to reentry efforts. Rather than focusing on individual locales, service providers, policymakers, and correctional agencies throughout New England collaborate to ensure a unified approach.

Low recruitment numbers. Poor attendance. Lackluster quarterly reports. These are concerns that burden many nonprofit, community-based outreach programs around the country. For Workforce Connections Inc., an organization that serves people returning to their communities from incarceration in western Wisconsin, these problems were heightened by the rural and semi-rural environments from which the organization draws both participants and volunteers.

The Connection Inc., a Connecticut-based nonprofit organization, was one of five organizations in the country to receive the 2016 Outstanding Criminal Justice Program Award from the National Criminal Justice Association.

Individual panelists offered differing perspectives on what work needs to be done to reduce recidivism, but the group agreed that there are a number of straightforward, nonpartisan measures that state and local governments can adopt in order to reduce recidivism and increase public safety.

“These grants are an important step in fulfilling our promise as a land of second chances by moving beyond locking people up and instead working together to unlock their potential,” said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez.

After a conviction, people often face severe, unanticipated penalties beyond the court’s sentence, commonly known as collateral consequences. More than half of all collateral consequences are employment related, according to the National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction. For example, in an effort to advance public safety and ensure high-quality services, states require licenses for particular businesses or occupations, such as health care professionals, transportation specialists and cosmetologists.

As someone who was once incarcerated, Khalil Cumberbatch knows that the things many people miss while behind bars may not be what one might expect. “Many people that I’ve met in maximum security prisons want to … be involved with their community; they want to be taxpayers; they want to be able to drop their kids off and pick them up from school,” he said at the Washington Post’s Criminal Justice Summit in Washington, DC, this month.

“We really became committed to reentry,” said Rockdale County Lieutenant Dennis Pass. “So going to command staff and getting buy-in for using this tool wasn’t difficult. They knew finding a tool that doesn’t take a clinician to use is tough, so this was a perfect fit.”

It Starts With Housing is a new publication from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that encourages public housing authorities to collaborate with partners to “make second chances real for the men and women returning” from jail and prison.

In an effort to reduce recidivism and the public cost of emergency room visits by uninsured patients, two California counties—San Diego and Imperial—are using enrollment programs to increase access to Medicaid-covered physical and behavioral health services for people involved with their criminal justice systems.

“The phrase ‘law enforcement’ pigeonholes the enforcement, but policing is about being a public servant and actually has to do with way more than just putting handcuffs on people,” said Seattle Police Department Detective Kim Bogucki.

Several presenters at the event pointed to the SmartHire program—a public-private partnership funded by the State of California and Santa Cruz County that pre-screens and subsidizes qualified candidates for their first six months on the job—as an incentive for employers to hire people with records.

With videos, infographics, photographs, flashcard testimonials, and more, Volunteers of America of Indiana makes it easy for people around the community to learn more about reentry, efforts to reduce criminal recidivism, and the rewards of volunteering as a mentor.

As states across the country adopt changes in their Medicaid programs, people who were previously ineligible for coverage have become eligible, including a significant number of people involved with the criminal justice system.

People who are returning to Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Louisiana, from two correctional facilities in the state are receiving individualized roadmaps to successful reentry from an unexpected place: the RNR Simulation Tool—a web-based, decision-support system designed in part to assist agencies in determining what types of programming will be most effective in reducing a person’s likelihood of committing another crime.

A recent ProPublica story on risk and needs assessment asked some important questions about a particular risk and needs assessment tool and the broader implications of its use. As the national discussion continues about the use and value of risk and needs assessment, the CSG Justice Center offers comments on risk and needs assessment as it relates to racial disparity and bias in the criminal justice system.

Often times, one word stands in the way of connecting people who need jobs with the jobs that need to be filled, according to Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Secretary and member of The Council of State Governments Justice Center Board John Wetzel. “Think of the term ‘offender,’” said Wetzel. “We tell someone coming out of the back end of our system, ‘We want you to do well. We want you to work,’ but then we put a nametag on their chest that says ‘offender.’ That’s not setting folks up for success.”

The Vermont DOC organized volunteers from local communities into citizen-based boards, which led, in 1998, to the creation of what are now known across the state as Community Justice Centers (CJCs). Today, there are 20 CJCs in Vermont—one in every county—managed centrally by the Vermont DOC. CJCs provide intensive support services in employment, housing, mentoring, and restitution management for people returning to their communities from incarceration. They rely primarily on volunteers to deliver these services.

On April 4, the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued “Guidance on Application of Fair Housing Act Standards to the Use of Criminal Records,” which states that the broad exclusion of people with criminal records in the sale or rental of housing or other real estate transactions may be in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

From Prison to Prosperity, a new program offered by the St. Louis Agency on Training and Employment, seeks to curb recidivism and improve reentry outcomes among young adults by prioritizing employment and financial literacy programming.

Representatives from correctional systems in 12 states came to Washington, DC, in early March to set strategies for and share experiences around reducing recidivism in their states and across the country.

In Kansas, four out of nine people possess a criminal record. Although the Wichita City Council voted in July 2015 to “ban the box” that asks whether applicants have a criminal record on its job applications—following the lead of dozens of other states and hundreds of cities and counties —there’s still more to be done, said Wichita City Council member LaVonta Williams.

When Toby Jones first meets her clients, she finds that many of them are shocked that someone wants to help them. Jones is the mentoring program director for Family Pathfinders of Tarrant County in Fort Worth, Texas, where she serves women in Tarrant County Jail’s Intensive Day Treatment program for substance use.

RESET, which is funded by a 2014 Second Chance Act grant, is a six-month program designed specifically for women and implemented through a partnership between a residential reentry center and a nonprofit behavioral health agency. A typical participant in RESET has a co-occurring substance use and mental disorder and a moderate- to high-risk of committing another crime.

Twenty-eight percent of the people released from prison in the State of Iowa in 2010 were back behind bars by 2013, according to the Iowa Department of Corrections’ (IDOC) Iowa Recidivism Report. But, with a grant awarded from the U.S. Department of Justice, the IDOC is leading efforts to drop the state’s recidivism rate by eight percentage points in five years.

For Stephanie Mason—human resources manager at Dunn Building Company in Birmingham, Alabama—what appears on a potential employee’s job application is not necessarily the most important factor to consider when hiring.

Michael Thompson, director of the CSG Justice Center, examines the results of a recent evaluation of a federal reentry program and asks: What happens when a program or policy championed by data loyalists doesn’t yield the positive results they’d hoped for?

Leaders of 25 local businesses joined Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, and other state and city officials on Oct. 14 to promote employment opportunities for people formerly involved with the justice system.

Currently in the last month of her 3-month-stay at Oriana House Trisha is enrolled in the facility’s Partners in Parenting program, which works with residents to help them develop the skills necessary to become better parents upon release.

In 2012, three Michigan-based employers—Butterball Farms, Cascade Engineering, and Grand Rapids Community College—set out to prove to the business community what they had known for years: hiring people with criminal records is an investment worth making.

The Topeka Correctional Facility—Kansas’s only female correctional facility—is easing barriers to employment for women reentering their communities from prison with Commerce Technology Career Training, a first-of-its-kind program that equips women with marketable, certified skills in the manufacturing technology field.

The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center and the Chief Probation Officers of California (CPOC) have named a senior policy fellow to provide support to California policymakers interested in learning more about “what works” in reentry as well as promising approaches from around the country on specific issues.

“The timing of the pope’s visit puts the spotlight on the crucial area of reentry as a way of conveying that these people are down, they’re looking for a second chance at life, and we have an opportunity to help them make the most of it, and make our communities safer as a result,” Arn Quakkelaar, executive director of Milwaukee-based nonprofit Brothers and Sisters in Christ Serving.

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